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Business process modeling faces a difficult balance: on the one hand, organizations seek to enact, control and automate business processes through formal structures (procedures and rules). On the other hand, organizations also seek to embrace flexibility, change, innovation, value orientation, and dynamic capabilities, which require informal structures (unique user experiences). Addressing this difficulty, the authors propose the composite approach, which integrates formal and informal process structures. The composite approach adopts a socio-material conceptual lens, where both material and human agencies are supported.

The study follows a design science research methodology. An innovative artifact – the composite approach – is introduced. The composite approach is evaluated in an empirical experiment.

The experimental results show that the composite approach improves model understandability and situation understandability.

This research explores the challenges and opportunities brought by adopting a socio-material conceptual lens to represent business processes.

The study contributes an innovative hybrid approach for modeling business processes, articulating coordination and contextual knowledge. The proposed approach can be used to improve model understandability and situation understandability. The study also extends the socio-material conceptual lens over process modeling with a theoretical framework integrating coordination and contextual knowledge.